UMW official blames Obama for mine layoffs

Mr. Tom, one of the largest coal mine draglines in the country, moves across Highway 216 in Brookwood Ala. Saturday Dec. 8 2012. Drummond Coal restored the 4000-ton piece of machinery.

Dusty Compton | Tuscaloosa News

By Patrick RupinskiBusiness Editor

Published: Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 12:39 a.m.

A top official of the United Mine Workers accused the Obama administration of embracing policies that are destroying the nation's coal industry and costing thousands of American jobs, including those of several hundred West Alabama-area coal miners who got word this week that they will soon be out of work.

Daryl H. Dewberry, international vice president of UMW District 20, said Wednesday that President Barack Obama's actions will be felt across Alabama's economy and cost more jobs. And he said they ultimately will raise energy prices and increase, not decrease, global warming by moving manufacturing to countries like China, that do not have pollution-emission controls like the U.S.

Dewberry's comments followed Tuesday's notification by Birmingham-based Drummond Company to the state that it planned to lay off 425 miners at its underground Shoal Creek Mine starting Sept. 9. At the same time, Dewberry said he will meet this week with officials from Hoover-based Walter Energy Inc., which is closing its Swann's Crossing Mine, a surface coal mine near Brookwood.

Calls to Drummond and Walter Energy officials requesting comment were not returned Wednesday.

The Swann's Crossing Mine will start laying off about 70 miners Friday as it ends its operations, according to a required filing Walter Energy made in May with the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.

Drummond's Shoal Creek Mine, which has its main entrance in Jefferson County, has coal reserves in Tuscaloosa, Jefferson and Walker counties and employees who largely live in the three counties.

In a letter to union officials, Drummond said the layoffs are due to “a significant downturn in business.”

It added: “Although these layoffs may not ultimately be permanent, they will be of indeterminate length and will likely extend for more than six months.”

Dewberry, whose District 20 office is based in McCalla but serves the Southeast, said the collapse of the nation's coal industry is due to Obama's policies to force coal-burning utility plants to switch to fuel sources such as natural gas.

Natural gas is cleaner burning than coal and there now is an abundance of natural gas in the United States because of new technology to recover underground gas reserves. But that technology, known as fracking, also has potential environmental consequences with fracking opponents saying it can contaminate groundwater.

Dewberry said the closing of the area coal mines will affect more than the miners and their families. It will be felt by companies that supply goods and services to the mines and their employees and the local area governments.

The counties from which the coal is mined receive a severance excise tax payment for every ton of coal removed. That money goes to support county services, roads and schools.

“Right now, there is an abundance of natural gas,” Dewberry said. But as the federal government forces electrical utilities like Alabama Power Co. to convert coal-fired plants to natural gas, the demand for natural gas will rise, costing consumers more.

At the same time, countries like China and India, are increasing their coal-burning power plants and do not have the pollution-control technology mandated in the U.S.

“I think that we will be doing more damage to the environment than anything else,” Dewberry said. “China has no regulations protecting the environment.”

He said about two-thirds of the 1,200 power plants being built in China are coal-fired.

“China has cheap energy and cheap labor, and manufacturers are moving there. It affects our economy and our national security.”

Meanwhile, Obama has done little to keep jobs here, he said. “It is nothing but a plan that eventually will reduce the middle class so we will only have the rich and the poor,” he said.

The UMW endorsed Obama in 2008 when he won the presidency. In that campaign, he did not target the coal industry, Dewberry said. In 2012, the union did not endorse him because of shifts in his energy policy, he said.

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